NASA offers Virtual space travel:’Eyes in the Solar System’

Want to travel through the Solar System along with NASA. Yes Web service ‘Eyes in the Solar System‘ , combines the technology of video and data from NASA to create an environment in which users travel virtually in space and explore the cosmos.It’s an Interactive live tool run within your favorite Browsers which scraps information on the location of planets and spacecraft using real data from the NASA missions. So Now in times of economic crisis, an way to take a little trip through space Who would not want to give it a spin?Try it out?
Simply say “Eyes on the Solar System” is a 3-D environment , full of real NASA mission data. Explore the cosmos from your computer. Hop on an asteroid. Fly with NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft. See the entire solar system moving in real-time. It’s up to you. You control space and time”
Jim Green, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters. claims that “This is the first time the public has been able to see the entire solar system and our mission moving together in real-time,”
This virtual environment uses the game engine Unity to display models of planets, moons, asteroids, comets and spacecraft moving through our solar system. Using the control keyboard and mouse, users navigate through a space to explore all that attention.Users also could experience real-time missions, and the application also allows them to travel through time, with NASA data dating back to 1950 and are projected to 2050.The playback speed can be accelerated or slowed. for eg: In the case of the Juno spacecraft, which launched on August 5, users can look forward to see the five-year mission to Jupiter travel in seconds. Tens of controls in a series of pop-up menus allow users to fully customize what they see, and video and audio tutorials explain how to use many tool options. Users can choose between modes 2-D or 3-D.

To begin with this Interactive Solar system view tool , Visit ‘Eyes in the Solar System’ where you will be prompted to Install Unity Webplayer.In fact this free browser plug-in available on the site, requires to run the Web application.[It’s of 400 MB size] .You can also install it from this link [only avail for Windows and Mac – supports all major Browser platforms]